'Twere best not to describe the rest of the awful scene in which a woman safe behind bars clapped her hands over the pain she had caused.
But is it surprising that Zulannah's enemies were legion?
CHAPTER X
"The wind that sighs before the dawn
Chases the gloom of night;
The curtains of the East are drawn
And suddenly—'tis light."
SIR LEWIS MORRIS.
The desert stretched before Damaris.
As a lover, clad in golden raiment, in quick pursuit of his love with dusky hair and starry eyes across a field of purple iris, Day flinging wide his arms leaped clear of the horizon which lies like a string across the sandy wastes. Gathering her draperies, hiding her starry jewels in misty scarves, Night fled in seeming fear, leaving behind her a trail of sweet-scented, silver-embroidered purple, grey and saffron garments, which melted in the warmth of love.
But leap he from the horizon ever so quickly, don he his most brilliant armour and pursue he ever so hastily, yet, save for two short hours when he may barely touch her hem, Night stands ever mockingly, beckoning, just out of reach.
O thrice-wise woman! How else would there be pursuit?
And Damaris laughed aloud from sheer content as she touched the coal-black stallion with her heel, and held him, fretting, eager to be away over the sand, to wherever Fate pointed.
Half-believing, half-doubting the words of the fortune-teller, this early morning following hard upon her arrival in Heliopolis she slipped from her room, wakened the astounded night-porter of the Desert Palace Hotel, and demanded a car to be brought upon the instant. And lucky it was for her that she made one of the ducal party, for nothing else would have procured her her heart's desire at that untoward hour before dawn.
With Wellington beside her, she drove hard along the deserted high-road towards the village of Makariyeh where, under a sycamore, 'tis said the Virgin and Child rested on their Flight into Egypt.
The head-lights seemed to hurl the shadows back as she raced down the Sharia el-Misalla towards the ruins of old Heliopolis, which is all that remains of the great seat of learning, the biblical City of On. And the sky lightened way down in the east as she drove along the outer edge of the fort to the Obelisk, known to the Arab as el-Misalla.
And there the words of the fortune-teller came true, for fretting and fuming in an endeavour to unseat his sayis, who rode him native-wise, without his feet in the stirrups, rearing and backing at the sound of the engine throbbing in the gloom, was the coal-black stallion of Unayza.
Damaris did not cast a look at the Obelisk. She had eyes only for the beautiful beast which, seemingly, she was to ride on a single rein and a wisp of a saddle. Standing sixteen hands, born of the desert, nervous and self-willed, he was no fit mount for a woman, and a gleam of anxiety flashed across the sayis's face as he measured the slender girl with his eye and re-adjusted the stirrup-leather.
"In the name of the hawk-headed Ra-Harakht."
The servant salaamed as he mechanically repeated the unintelligible sentence which had been drummed into him by his master; and Damaris smiled and replied in the servant's tongue, to his amazement, and walked up close to el-Sooltan, holding out a flat palm with sugar upon it.
It took some time before he snuffled her hand, and then only by stratagem she mounted, swinging herself in a bound to the saddle as the groom slipped to the ground on the off-side; upon which el-Sooltan wheeled sharply and headed straight for the village of Khankah, which is the outskirt proper of the desert.
For two and a half miles, at a tearing gallop, the girl made no attempt to show any authority. But once on the very edge of the desert she did, for this was the longed-for moment of her life, when alone, free, she should ride out into the unknown; and she had no inclination or intention of being hurled through that moment like a stone from a catapult. Sooltan, behaving like a very demon, tried his best to unseat the light weight upon his back by the simple and usually so effective methods of rearing, plunging and bucking; but Damaris only smiled and shouted as she looked towards the east, caring not a jot for any vagary, so content was she.
But as the sun leapt clear of the horizon, she gave one cry, touched the stallion lightly upon the neck, gave him his head, and was across the desert, unmindful of an Arab who, some distance away, which, in the desert, is really no optical distance at all, headed a grey mare, thoroughbred and of mighty endurance, in the same direction.
Where is there anything to compare to riding across the desert at dawn? At dawn, when to your right and to your left march phalanxes of ghostly shapes, which maybe are the shadows of the night, or maybe, as says the legend, the ghosts of the many long-dead kingdoms buried in oblivion and the relentless sands; when the whistling of the wind is as the shouting of men and the thunder of your horse's hoofs as the rolling of many drums, calling you through the power of past centuries and the ecstasy of the solitude in your heart, out to the mystery of the plains.
Mystery, fascination, spell, lure, call of the desert. All fine words, but hopeless to explain that which has lured more than one white woman out into the golden wilderness to the wrecking of her soul; and which has nothing whatever to do with the pseudo-psychic waves which trick us into such pitiable hysteria and hallucination.
But there is no mystery about that which called Damaris. It was the joy of youth, the salt of novelty, the exhilarating sympathy between horse and rider; she shouted as she seemingly rode straight into the massed colouring of the sunrise; she lifted her face to the golden banners flung across the sky and turned in the saddle and looked back at the hem of Night's garments disappearing down in the west.
She was still a child, for those auxiliaries, Love and Life, had not yet lain hand upon her; they had but pulled aside the veil from before her eyes for one brief second, and she, dazzled by the glimpse, had pulled it back hastily. Neither was there anything to tell her that, upon a not very far distant day, the veil would be torn from her, leaving her to be well-nigh blinded by the radiance of the greatest light in the world.
And she rode carelessly, without a thought to the passing of time or to the ever-increasing speed of el-Sooltan, who was all out in an endeavour to find his stable, also his companions, from whom he had been parted for many weary weeks.
That they happened to be in the Oasis of Khargegh, some few hundred miles down the Nile, he was not to know; he only knew that the desert was his home and that in it and of it was his happiness to be found; and it was only when Damaris turned to look at the ruins of the City of On from a far distance that she discovered that they had disappeared in a mist which was merely the combination of the distance and the waters of the oasis evaporating in the morning sun.
She tried to pull the stallion, gently at first, and then with all her might, but to no purpose; for nothing but the voice of his master or his own particular sayis could stop el-Sooltan once he had got the light bit between his teeth; and of the death from thirst which awaited him and his rider upon this particular venture if he continued in his obstinacy he had, of course, no warning.
"What a nuisance," said Damaris, as she looked round the great yellow plain which stretched, a carpet of level sand, to the west and under her horse's feet and broke to the east into a chain of hummocks, piled by the last sandstorm which had caused such devastation in the nomad tribes and such annoyance to the visitors at Heliopolis.
She felt no fear, only an increasing vacuum beneath her waistbelt and distress for the worry her long absence might cause her godmother.
"And Well-Well will have chewed everything chewable in the car, also the legs of the sayis, by the time I get back," she exclaimed. "And I can't do anything—I've irrevocably given el-Sooltan his head. It's no use slipping from the saddle, because I couldn't walk back. I can't . . ."
She broke off suddenly, rose in the stirrups and waved. And a more radiant picture of youth you could not have wished to see in a lifetime.
"A village!" she shouted. "Camels, palms, water. An oasis with tents; women and children and men. Come round, Sooltan, come round." And she pulled with all her strength, and still to no avail, for, oblivious of the peaceful, verdant patch, the mighty animal forged ahead.
"Well, I shall have to drop from the saddle, let Sooltan go, and walk over to them. They are sure to be friendly and . . ."
She had just slipped her foot from the stirrup when, clear and insistent, there came a ringing cry.
Some way off, the Hawk of Egypt had followed her from the village of Khankah, with intent, knowing the horse she rode, to watch over but not intrude his presence upon her. He had known for some time that el-Sooltan was out of hand, and had decided to call him after a mile or so more of furious exercise; but, instead, quite suddenly and instinctively, he cried, "A'ti balak!—a'ti balak!" which means, "Be careful—be careful," and pulled the mare to a standstill.
He too had seen the mirage of the peaceful oasis, thrown by the atmosphere from a distance of eighty miles, and with his desert-trained eyes had caught the little movement of the foot; and, connecting the two, he insistently called the stallion, knowing that a drop from the saddle at the almost incredible speed at which Sooltan was going might easily result in twisted ankles or even a broken neck.
"Irja!" he called. "Irja!" Which means, "Come back, come back!" And he called again and again as the stallion dropped from a gallop to a canter, a canter to a trot, then stopped dead; whinnied gently; wheeled sharply and stood stock-still.
"Irja, Sooltan!" came the cry. "Irja Sooltan!" And with the cry came the neighing of the mare.
The stallion lashed out, reared and stood still, ears pricked, silken mane and tail flying in the wind.
Then he answered, until the desert seemed filled with the calling of the noble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ridden by the Arab.
Then something within her rebelled at this intrusion upon her privacy, causing her to be suddenly stricken with anger and confusion.
"Take me to the tents, Sooltan!" she cried, turning to look back.
"Take—but—why—oh! what an escape—a mirage—a——"
But the rest was lost in the sudden bound of el-Sooltan as he raced in obedience to his master's call.
The man waited until they were within a mile of him; then he wheeled the mare and took her back along her tracks, urging her to her topmost speed. Swiftly she fled and swiftly pursued Sooltan, the man not once turning in his seat.
And as they neared the outskirts of the oasis of Heliopolis Hugh Carden Ali urged the mare so that she gained upon the stallion, and beckoned to his groom, who had run hot-foot from the Obelisk to the edge of the desert with fear in his heart for the beast but not one whit for the girl. And he caught the shouted order as his master passed him at full speed, and ran out, shouting in his turn to the stallion.
El-Sooltan, connecting the sayis with the bucketsful of water he stood so badly in need of, stopped short, nearly unseating Damaris with the suddenness of his decision and then with the hand of the groom upon his heaving flank trotted docilely back to the Obelisk, where Wellington, risking curvature of the spine, turned himself into a canine picture of ecstatic welcome.
"To-morrow at the same hour," said Damaris, feeding the stallion with sugar, "he will know me better."
"Ma sha-Allah!" murmured the servant to himself, praising the courage of this bit of a woman.
"Bikhatirkum," she said gently, as she moved off in the car.
"Ma'a-s-salamah ya sitti," answered the delighted, astounded man as he salaamed almost to the ground before such unexpected graciousness.
CHAPTER XI
"Give me that man that is not passion's slave and I will wear him in my heart's core. . . ."
SHAKESPEARE.
In his blindness and obstinacy and hurt Ben Kelham carried out his intention and went after lion, the report of which, for all he knew, might have been the outcome of some fellah's vision of a tame pussy mixed up with the nocturnal habits of the lion-headed goddess Sekhet, who, so tradition avers, prowls about ruins by the light o' the moon, seeking whom she may devour.
The moon plays havoc with the strongest-minded, out yonder!
Anyway, love-sick, he left Heliopolis, placing the panacea of sport like a poultice upon his hurt.
Shortly after, one day during the noon hours, in the cool shadows of his great palace in Cairo, there came to Hugh Carden Ali an overpowering desire to see the girl he loved amongst her own people.
She was his at dawn in the desert, although miles of sand stretched between them; his in the rush of the wind, the glory of the sky and the thunder of the horses' hoofs; but to whom did she turn at night; in the maze of the dance; the hothouse atmosphere of the hotel; the crush of the winter visitors?
So, giving a twist to the dagger of love in his heart, he tucked the dogs of Billi in beside him and drove as the sun set to Heliopolis, and, guessing that the duchess would have a table near the window, chose one on the opposite side of the dining-room, so that his presence should not be thrust upon the girl or the old woman who had known his mother.
He sat there, indifferent to or oblivious of the interest his presence aroused, unconsciously counting the vertebrae of the lady at the next table, who had evidently forgotten some essential part of her bodice.
He counted the vertebrae in the back of the lady who was dying to turn round, until the duchess and Damaris entered the room; then he clenched his hands under the table with an involuntary shudder of disgust.
It was the first time he had seen the girl he loved in evening dress, and every instinct of the Oriental in him was outraged at the sight of the gleaming neck and shoulders and hint of lace-shrouded virgin form.
She was not in full décollétage by any means, but the waiter's sleeve was but an inch from her satin skin when he bent over her, so that, although he had long grown accustomed in Europe to the undraping of woman o' nights, yet, because he loved the beautiful girl, he longed for the right to walk across the room, pick her up in his arms, and, smothering her in a barku, hide her forever from all male eyes but his own.
Later, as he sat alone in a far corner of the ball-room, he twisted the dagger of love this way and that in his tormented heart, whilst the dogs of Billi worried the life out of the hall-porter as they fretted and moaned for their master who tarried. He had never danced, himself, loathing the idea of the propinquity of a stranger's body so close to his own; of a stranger's mouth so near his own; of the animal odour of the naked body, which no perfume can hide, within his nostrils; just as he loathed the idea of a woman passing from one man's arms to another's throughout the best part of a night.
He had no desire whatever to dance with Damaris, but all the Eastern in him longed to make her dance for him; in the desert for preference; under the light of the moon; with the insistent throbbing of the drum keeping time to the rhythm of the slender feet upon the warm sand.
And he sat and dreamed under the palms, taking no heed of the sudden cessation of music, the gathering of the dancers against the walls; the half-suppressed, laughter and moistening of lip with furtive tongue and the unusual feeling of expectancy in the heavy, perfumed air.
But he came back to earth when from some corner of the room there came the faint tapping of a drum.
Three times there fell a single beat, then a gentle roll and a single beat, bringing him to his feet as he recognised the measure, just as the lights were switched off, excepting for one great beam which, striking down from some device in the ceiling, made a silvery pool in the middle of the floor.
"No!" he cried from the shadows, "this must not be. It is not seemly for the eyes of women."
But the answer to this protest came in little jeering laughs and quick remonstrance from those who feared that the whetting of their appetites should be snatched from them, and a sigh of satisfaction went up when, from the shadows, there sprang an Arabian youth, beautiful as a god, supple as a snake, quick upon his feet as any fighting stallion.
He stood for a second with arms outflung to the men and women he knew were watching his every movement outside the radius of the light, and then he sprang back with that marvellous leap which is the gift of some Arabian male dancers.
Ah me! you talk in pharisaic whispers of the Nautch girl; in righteous anger against the dainty geisha; in horror of the weaving Salomes as known in Western cities; wait, however, before you pour the last drop from your vials of wrath and indignation until you have seen an Arab dance "al-fajr" which, being translated, means the dawn. You can put what interpretation you like upon it: the dawn of day, or love, anything will do, but you most certainly ought not to watch it.
If, however, you persist in so doing, you should blush to the roots of your hair—you will not, because it will be the perfect poetry of motion you will be witnessing; also ought you, after the third movement, to turn your back or flee the room—you will not, again, because of the mocking sensuality which will keep you rooted where you stand; again, you ought to stuff your ears against the throbbing of the drum—but that will you not do because of the words of love which fall, seemingly reft from the dancer's lips in the rapture of his movements. It is the last word in sensual ecstasy, and should be prohibited for public exhibition to Europeans, yet it is quite impossible to point at any one movement and label it as the cause of the tumult within you.
But Hugh Carden Ali, standing under a palm, turned quickly when a little sound of distress caught his ear, and put out his hand and pulled the girl he had recognised in the dark by her perfume towards him, so that the back of her head rested against his arm; and sensing her nausea at the sight from which she had been trying to fly, and knowing the sheer impossibility of keeping the eyes shut in a theatre, he pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and placed it across her eyes.
Save for the back of her head resting just below his shoulder he did not touch her, and if he bent his head so that the perfumed riot of her curls swept his cheek, should it count as a grievous sin against him?
The stone beside each of us is quite likely to lie untouched throughout our span of three-score plus ten.
At the last beat of the drum and just before the lights were switched on, Damaris was alone, with a silken handkerchief in her hand, in one corner of which, as she discovered later, was embroidered the Hawk of Old Egypt.
CHAPTER XII
". . . Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays."
OMAR KHAYYAM.
Hugh Carden Ali, with the dogs of Billi crushed in beside him, raced back to his palace in Cairo and with the shaggy pair at his heels passed to his side of the great house. His body-servant, as nimble as a monkey, as devoted as a dog, and almost dumb by reason of a tongue split in his youth for misdemeanour, fell on his knees at his feet.
He worshipped his young master, who had one time rescued him from a savage, baiting crowd in the bazaar and taking him into his service had made him his own particular servant; he equally loathed his master's austere bedroom and adjoining dressing-room, with simple furniture which had lately come from Bilid el-Ingliz, a dark, cold country across the sea, where it rains without ceasing. And he helped strip his master of the hateful, tight, hot European clothes and trotted joyfully after him to the swimming-bath, and watched him dive in and swim the length and climb out the other end, and disappear between curtains into the luxurious rooms of the East.
Having robed him, agog with curiosity and at a discreet distance, he followed the resplendent figure in his satin raiment, snow-white turban glistening with jewels and hooded falcon on wrist, and cursed the dogs under his breath when they turned and growled softly. But his curiosity was turned to a great amazement when his master passed into the court of the empty, luxuriant, perfumed harem, where once had loved and quarrelled, idled and fought, so many beautiful women.
Under the orders of the Ethiopian eunuch, giant twin of Qatim, in the service of Zulannah the courtesan, the harem was kept swept and garnished, adorned with flowers, aglow at nights with a myriad soft lights hanging from the ceiling in jewelled lamps, to which were flung the fountain's perfumed drops, to fall and break on marble floor and silken cushion, inlaid table and bright-hued birds in jewelled cage.
There does exist a different kind of harem—dirty, gaudy, ill-kempt—somewhat like the inmates—over the whole of which 'tis wise to draw a veil.
The eunuch's bankings-account—which was kept in a certain secret nook of the harem court—had become sadly depleted on account of his master's eccentric views as regarded women, but he still lived in hope, and, delighting in intrigue, as every native does, had welcomed the advent of his ebony brother primed with gossip and suggestion.
Therefore, upon the beating of the gong which had not been struck for many weary moons, he hastened to the court and salaamed to the ground before his master, who sat upon a pile of cushions, guarded by the two shaggy dogs of Billi, with the amber mouthpiece of the jewel-encrusted nargileh between his lips and the falcon upon a padded perch beside him.
"Bring me a woman—to dance," he curtly ordered, and the slave sped to do his bidding, with visions of a big increase in the banking-account hidden in a secret place.
And when the dancer drifted in like a flower-petal upon a breeze, Hugh Carden Ali looked up slowly, letting escape a wisp of smoke from between his lips.
The dancer wore one single garment of transparent black, hung from the shoulders by diamond bands and through which her perfectly nude body shone like an ivory pillar; her slender feet with crimsoned toes and heels were bare; the tiny hands ablaze with jewels; a huge bunch of orange-tinted diamond-sprinkled osprey was fastened in her jet-black hair; across her face there hung a short, almost transparent veil, one corner of which she held between her teeth, leaving to view the wonderful eyes, a heaven or hell of invitation—as you will.
She danced as had danced her Biblical sister to the pleasing of a king for the attainment of her desire; and she danced humming a little tune behind the veil until the movement of her beautiful body and the knowledge of a man's eyes upon her went to her head like wine, so that in the end, by force of habit maybe, she danced to conquer where she had only intended to interest.
As already mentioned, she had the morals of a jackal.
She drifted down the court towards Hugh Carden Ali and, standing before him, bowed her beautiful head to the level of her dimpled knees, laughed gently, and was gone like a bird to a far corner of the court.
She seemed to swing in the air like a lime flower caught on the end of a spider's thread, as she came slowly down once more; to be blown hither and thither like a leaf before the gale as she ran here, sprang there, to the rhythm of the little tune she hummed behind the wisp of veil; to undulate, like a field of ripe wheat beneath the summer sun as she stood quite near the man who watched her with a fraction of the interest he would have shown in the purchase of a dog or falcon in the open mart.
Her henna'd toes pressed firmly on the centre of a Persian rug of such antiquity as to render the pattern indecipherable; she moved her body from the slender waist downward not at all; the muscles of her arms and shoulders rippled, and her head moved, slightly but unceasingly from side to side.
How often one hears of the European's boredom whilst watching the Nautch Dance in which the Indian Nautch girl, fully clothed, indeed in high tight bodice and ankle-length, voluminous skirt, will drive her native audience clean crazy with the tapping of her feet and slight, undulating movements of the slender body and rod-like arms. It is indeed the dullest thing on earth to watch if you are unable to follow and interpret every little movement. But if you can—well! the unexpurgated version of the Arabian Nights will be as milk-and-water compared to the heady brew offered for your consumption. And the old Harrovian sitting cross-legged, upon a heap of cushions, with the smoke of the nargileh, drifting from between his lips, smiled as he picked up the thread of the same old story which had been spun for him when, an arrogant youth of twelve summers, he had ruled his house with no gentle hand.
Otherwise he showed little interest and felt no desire to lift the tantalising veil; neither did he turn his head, else might he have seen the ebony face of the Ethiopian eunuch peering from between a mass of flowers, from which point of vantage he watched the scene with intent to report thereon to his black twin-brother.
At last, and very slowly, and with a growing feeling of resentment in the place where her heart by rights should have been, Zulannah sped down the court upon her toes and fell at the edge of the piled cushions, causing the dogs to growl softly at her daring.
"Thou art a beautiful dancer, woman," said Hugh Carden Ali, making no movement to lift the veil. "Behold, I have passed a pleasant hour and would reward thee. What thou wilt. Money—jewels?—speak."
From behind the wisp of veil which fluttered in the dancer's quick breathing came the barely whispered answer.
"I hear thee not, woman; raise thy voice and be not afraid. I will give thee what thou desirest."
"One hour!"
The man bent forward to catch the words, and when their full import struck him, leapt to his feet and catching the woman's wrist jerked her upright, ripping the veil from before her face.
"Zulannah!" he cried, and sprang back, having heard of the lady's deft handling of her dagger when in the tantrums. Then he caught both wrists and held her pinioned, looking with loathing into the exquisite, furious face, whilst the great dogs, fangs bared, ruffs upstanding, sniffed suspiciously at the knees and waist, even rising on their hind-legs to snuff the slender neck of this woman who had angered their master.
For a second he held her with arms stretched to breaking-point and henna'd toes barely touching the ground, then threw her across the cushions, whilst the dogs growled softly as they prowled, belly to ground, about the prostrate figure and the ebony-hued eunuch tore at his woolly hirsute covering amongst the flowers.
But courtesans have tears as well as other kinds of women, and they use them every whit as effectively, perhaps a bit better, on account of the stoutness of their hearts.
So that when the man ordered the woman to sit up, she sat up, wiped real tears from the innocent-looking eyes, re-arranged her garments, and prepared for battle.
Tough might describe the rose-hued, satin-textured epidermis of the scarlet enchantress.
"Thou hast a great daring, woman."
The courtesan knew not the meaning of the word hesitation, and was off with the still-born desire and on with her original business between the tossing and falling of a drop from the perfumed fountain and ready with an explanation even before the man spoke.
"Thou hast misheard my words, lord. Knowing by hearsay of thy hatred of women, I entered thy house as dancer before thee, to gain as my reward one hour of speech with thee."
"Speech? Wherefore?
"Because I would help thee, and in helping thee help myself." Clasping her slender jewelled hands, across her bosom, she looked up to the gilded ceiling, and sighing softly, whispered:
"I love!"
"Thou!"
"Yea, lord. I love—and—thou lovest—and—nay, hear me, it is for thy advancement—and mine—and he, the man for whom my soul has turned to water, for whom I yearn—yea, if it be but for one single hour of his love—a memory of rose-time in the ash-pit of my years—he———" She stopped.
'Tis wise to approach a wounded tiger warily, especially if you are not certain as to the extent of the hurt or the power of the weapon of defence in your hand.
"Sit—and speak quickly, for I would have thee gone."
The man spoke curtly as he sank upon a pile of cushions and pointed to one on the far side of the Persian rug, upon which the most courted woman in Egypt knelt, with her eyes full of gentleness and her heart pounding in a torment of rage and fear.
"Yea, I understand."
Hugh Carden Ali spoke wearily, being stricken with love. For ten solid minutes the woman had talked round her subject. Intuitive, she scented danger; usually fearless, her whole being was sick with apprehension; desperate, she dug her nails into her flesh and essayed to reach her goal by a roundabout way.
Then she stopped, sighed, and cast down her eyes; then raised them beseechingly when the man spoke.
"Fearing to use force against the—the woman who thou sayest is loved by the man thou lovest—and may the prophet bear witness that thy tale is as full of turnings and twistings as the paths in the bazaar in which thou spinn'st thy web—thou would'st tear her from him by craft. Explain thy seemingly futile words, and hasten thy lying tongue, for behold the hour of dawn approacheth."
And the wrath in the voice was such as to hurl the woman pell-mell over the cliff of discretion down into the depths of her own undoing.
"She, the white woman, walks in the bazaar, yea, even at noon and at sunset. Perchance one evening, lured by the tale of the riches of the house of Zulannah, might not her feet stray within the portals at the setting of the sun. And behold, the key of the great door is within these hands, and—and———"
The man's hands lay quietly on his knees as he leant forward, and the shadow thrown by the flowering plants hid the twin pools of murder in the depths of his eyes.
"And———?" he whispered.
"And———" she whispered back, "would the white man, thinkest thou, take to wife her who had passed a night in the house of the courtesan? Would he not, without waiting for explanation, throw her into the filth of the bazaar, leaving her for the first comer to pick up, and turn himself to———"
She leapt to her feet, screaming, as his fingers closed round her wrist in a grip of steel; mad with fury, she tore her raiment and hair, raving obscenities in the vilest language of the lowest reaches of the bazaar, oblivious of the dogs which reared and fell and reared unceasingly behind her.
"The white woman who trapeses the bazaar unveiled," she screamed. "The white virgin who flung herself into thy arms, in the market-place, thou trafficker in foreign harlots, the———"
Hugh Carden Ali, the son of his father to the inner-most part of his being in the horrible scene, had made one little sign, and the dogs were upon her.
With a sickening scrunch one caught the side of her head in the steel jaws which stretched from the nape of the neck to the corner of the mouth; with a sharp snap the other drove its fangs into the muscle behind the dimpled knee.
They pulled her down and stood stock-still, as these dogs are trained to do; then with crimson saliva dripping from the jaws, crimson lights shining in the eyes, let go their hold and stood looking alternately from master to quarry, with slowly wagging tails.
There was no sign of anger in the man as he sat tranquilly upon the cushions, the amber mouthpiece of the nargileh between his lips; no sound of wrath in the gentle voice which bid the Ethiopian eunuch to remain prostrated upon the floor, until the arrival of the other slaves, who could be heard pelting through the house from every direction in answer to the summons of the gong.
"Idrabuh," he said quietly to four of the terror-stricken domestic staff, pointing to the eunuch. "Upon the soles of the feet so that he walketh not for many a day—if ever." And as the wretch was dragged screaming from the room, he beckoned to four others, and pointed to the body of the woman. "Carry that out and throw it in the street, in such wise that it is not known from whence it came. Touch not the jewels, lest thou sharest thy brother's fate."
With falcon upon wrist and blood-stained dogs at his heels, he passed out of the ill-fated court to his own apartment, and, having bathed and dressed himself, to his body-servant's grief, in hot, European riding-kit, with boots from Peter Yapp, tucked the cleansed dogs of Billi in beside him, and raced his car to the Obelisk which is all that remains upright of the Biblical City of On.
* * * * * *
The Ethiopian slave Qatim gathered up the broken body of the woman from the filth of the gutter and carried her to his hovel and flung her upon the filthy straw under which he hid the jewels he stripped from her.
CHAPTER XIII
"Best springs from strife and dissonant chords beget Divinest harmonies."
SIR LEWIS MORRIS.
As the sky lightened way down in the east and the faithful turned to prayer, the little old lady sat at her window, taking her hour of rest—her hour of understanding—with hands clasped peacefully in her lap, a little smile at the corner of her whimsical mouth and her snow-white hair fluttered by the breeze of dawn.
Bodily, mentally, spiritually, she was resting, having filched this hour in which, before donning the garish trappings of her toilet, to sit in fine cashmere night attire, covered in camel's-hair wrap as soft as satin, with her little crimson bed-room slippers peeping from under the hem and her snow-white hair confined by priceless lace; just as she had thrown aside the thoughts and worries which are the outcome of the turmoil and unrest of civilisation, to sit awhile, quietly, with her eyes upon the dazzling peaks which show so clearly when we push aside the nightmare fog we have wrapped about ourselves.
Not for her own relief did she sit at rest, for in that way rest does not come to us; but to the relieving of others by withdrawing from the lights and noises of this tumultuous planet and so obtaining a better perspective of things as they stand spiritually, and a clearer insight into the message of the only book she considered worth studying and committing to memory.
She was no great thinker, this little old lady, neither did she store up the printed thoughts of others to repeat them aptly upon fitting occasions; she invariably mixed up the philosophers and their works; 'osophies simply bewildered her; ritual left her cold, psychology troubled her but little, save only in its practical application to the lives of those she loved. But she knew the book of life, with its tragedies and comedies, humour and crass stupidity, nettles and balm from the first chapter to the last, and could prescribe you a remedy to cure your mental hurt just as easily as she could undress your screaming baby, find the criminal pin and re-dress it for you; and every member of every Church and every disciple of every creed could have fought a pitched battle at her feet and left her unmoved, so long as the sick and sinning crept to her for help and children, rich or poor, in silks or rags, rushed at her coming to cling about her knees.
She had no fixed time for her hour of understanding. At her window in moonlight, starlight or the coming of the dawn; in her gilded armchair in the firelight or the light of the sun; in her rose-garden, in her parks, anywhere, as long as she was withdrawn from noise and strife.
Not that she did not thoroughly enjoy going out to battle upon the most mundane of material planes. A born fighter, she would plunge into the strife for the sheer love of fighting and would take the bull by the horns or the man by the scruff of his neck and lay about her right heartily with her stout ebony stick backed by verbal blows from her vitriolic tongue.
Well, if we all rested for one hour, even for one minute, out of the twenty-four during the frantic passing of modern days, what a boon we should grant our neighbours!
And as the duchess sat quietly, with Dekko the parrot fast asleep upon the back of her chair, as becomes a well-conducted bird, Fate crept up behind and dropped the black thread of hate and the purple thread of grief amongst the others she had tossed into the old lady's lap.
She suddenly sat upright with a shiver.
Qatim the Ethiopian lifted the body of a woman from out the gutter, and the messenger from the Oasis of Khargegh strode through the gateway of the hotel and kicked the somnolent ghafir or watchman, who coughed discreetly behind the sleeping night-porter's back.
And when Hobson, some time later, entered the bedroom with her grace's early cup of tea, which included an egg and fruit, she said nothing of the terrible story which had run like wildfire through the servants' quarters and had turned her cold with horror.
Hobson was an autocrat in her own domain and ruled with a cast-iron rod.
"Don't you utter one word of this disgusting tale to her grace," she had said fiercely as she had sailed through the door of the ladies-maids' room, held meekly open for her by one of the under-maids, who had been caught gossiping, "or back you go to England, both of you." She turned back into the room and rattled the tray to emphasise her orders. "I won't have my lady troubled with it, d'you hear? Common circus trash! what has it got to do with you, I should like to know, if she's been killed or not? That's what they all come to, as you'll find out, if you don't take care."
She had swept from the room leaving the plump, rosy-cheeked Devonshire lasses trembling.
Many, many years ago the duchess had taken the bright, intelligent daughter of a Devonshire farmer on the estate into her service; trained her and promoted her as her seniors in the lady's service had married or been pensioned off, until she had finally risen to the post of head maid and confidential companion.
Love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by, but she adored her mistress and constituted herself as dragon, sheep-dog and buffer, so as to save her from unpleasantness or pain; at the same time issuing orders as to health and hours which her grace usually meekly obeyed—though you would not have taken a bet upon it with any feeling of security.
It is curious, the ascendancy which such a type of maid can obtain over a strong-willed mistress. Think of Abigail Hill and the influence she had over Queen Anne, which finally ousted the great Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, brought disturbance into English politics and ruin to the fortune of the Jacobites.
But at times there was a look in her mistress' eyes and a certain atmosphere radiating from the frail little person before which Hobson quailed, so that she said quite gently, "Tea and one letter, your grace," when she found her sitting at the open window, looking out at the morning sky.
But although she spoke gently and tucked an extra shawl about the bent shoulders with a tender hand, she was thinking viciously all the same over her mistresses leniency towards her god-daughter.
"I wish the young lady could be safely married to that proper English gentleman. One can see he wants her, but she doesn't seem to know her own mind. Too pleased by half she is, to my thinking, with this country and the silly nonsense of their nasty, heathen ways!"
And she left the room with a swish of starched petticoat, when Damaris, who had just returned from her desert ride, entered to greet her godmother.
She knelt at the side of the chair and, encircling her in her strong young arms, laid her cheek against the old lady's, and knelt without movement, looking out to the desert, whilst one wrinkled old hand stroked her head and the other turned the pages of the letter.
A piteous letter of appeal from a woman whose love had brought forth the bitterest of bitter fruit.
". . . Is there a way out, Petite Maman?" wrote Jill, the English wife of Hahmed Sheikh el-Umbar. "Will you undertake the long journey and come and see me, for who knows if together we could not find a way to ensure my boy's happiness? I would come to you, only Hugh is near you, and our men in the East tolerate no interference from their women-folk. My messenger will wait for your answer. I am overwhelmed with foreboding for Hugh my first-born. If you can, come to me. JILL."
And as the sun rose the old lady still sat near the window, trying to come to a decision.
Could she turn a deaf ear to the woman she had known as a girl almost twenty-five years ago? Could she, on the other hand, go to her and risk leaving the girl at her side exposed to the indescribable appeal of the East? Should she send her back to England, or take her as far as Luxor and leave her there under the social wing of Lady Thistleton?
"Have you learned any more about the Arab who follows at a distance when you ride in the morning, dear?"
Damaris nodded.
It seemed she had overheard Lady Thistleton talking about him; his palaces in the desert and at Cairo; his stables and falcons.
The girl stopped for a moment, then continued:
"He has an English name and seems to be a millionaire, and something else which I could not catch, but by the sound of the Prickly-Thistleton's voice it seemed to be something awful!"
"This"—the old lady touched the letter in her lap—"this is from his, mother, dear, asking me to go and see her. If I do, I will tell you the whole story when I come back. Don't ask me anything until then, dear."
Silence fell between them as the hotel woke to another sunlit day.
"Something will happen to decide me," mused the old lady as, a little later, she took her mail from Hobson, who moved majestically about the room with bath-salts and towels. "From Ben," she continued, flicking a lightning glance at the face which, went suddenly rosy pink as it rested against her knee. "Written from the Oasis of Kurkur near the First Cataract. He hasn't seen lion yet, but has heard a lot about the one which is causing a panic amongst the dragomen in Luxor. Oh! how nice for him! Do you remember fat Sybil Sidmouth, the crack shot?"
It seemed that jolly Sybil Sidmouth, well known at Bisley and who had brought a thin stepmother devastated with nerves to winter in Luxor, had also fallen a victim to lion gossip, and had wired a bet to Ben Kelham that she would bring in the lion's skin.
"They are meeting at Assouan to discuss plans . . ."
"Yes?" said Damaris indifferently, and added vindictively, "Knocking about in the desert might reduce her a bit," and gave no thought to the moment of that very morning when, under some uncontrollable impulse, she had turned the stallion Sooltan and taken him back at full gallop and to within a few yards of the Arab who, in European riding-kit and boots from Peter Yapp, had raised his right hand as she had thundered past standing in her stirrups.
A woman could keep a poultry-farm till the last trump, and even then never awake to the fact that the same brand of corn is appreciated both by the goose and the gander!
And, sure enough, something happened to decide her grace before the setting of the sun.
CHAPTER XIV
"Oh! for a falconer's voice to lure This tassel gentle back again."
SHAKESPEARE.
Lunch, desultory shopping and tea with friends in Cairo had been the order of the afternoon following the dawn which had found her grace at the window trying to come to a decision about her god-daughter. They were just returning from these festivities and were negotiating the last cross-roads of the Sharia Abbas when a native policeman, waving his arm like a semaphore, stepped into the slowly-moving stream of traffic.
Resulted the usual maelstrom of motors, native vehicles, stray animals and trams, in which tossed the native pedestrian as, agile and vociferous, he slipped in and out of the block, calling loudly upon Allah in his extremity.
"A native wedding, or something," said Damaris, who was driving. "What fun!" then blushed divinely pink.
There was one gorgeous mounted figure in the laughing, happy, tumultuous crowd which came whirling across the road kept clear for it by the police.
Hugh Carden Ali had gone a-hawking in a certain part of the desert near the ancient City of On, where gazelle is sometimes seen and birds are plentiful.
Clad in orange satin a-shine with jewels, with tight-fitting Eastern trousers ending in perfect riding-boots, with diamond osprey glittering in the white turban and falcon, with jesse to match the orange coat, on gauntleted wrist, he rode serenely in the cheering throng.
His falconers with their underlings walked on either side of the roan, which fretted and fidgeted at the slowness of the pace; the dogs of Billi walked sedately and by themselves; grooms of the kennels led greyhounds on the leash; behind them, almost bursting with importance, came a Persian deftly carrying the cadge, which is a kind of padded stand upon which, hooded and fastened by leashes, the favourite birds are carried to and fro.
At the rear was the birds' van, in which are carted the birds which may or may not be required, also spare parts of the paraphernalia upon which depends the success of this sport, the sport, in truth, of kings! In the "days that are past" the favourite sport of our own monarchs, especially in the "spacious days of great Elizabeth."
The bag was good considering the district, the poles on the servants' shoulders bending under the weight of two gazelle and countless birds of all sizes and plumage.
A couple of siyas waving the customary horsehair fly-whisk ran shouting before their master; servants surrounded the cortège, armed with sticks which they rattled with good effect upon the shins of the more venturesome among the spectators as the procession moved slowly, as move all things in the East.
Shouting fiercely, the siyas stopped suddenly in front of her grace's car, arms uplifted, mouths open, then turned in their tracks and sped back to the master who had called them.
The old lady and the girl beside her interchanged never a word as they watched Hugh Carden Ali urge the mare who picked a dainty path through the wondering crowds which opened a way before her. The sun caught the jewels on the man's breast and above his turban and upon the saddle-cloth of the roan mare, and struck fiercely slantwise into the proud, handsome face with the set mouth and the eyes which never once looked in the Englishwomen's direction.
For a full minute he sat immovable, whilst the mare, freed from the fret of the crowd, stood stock-still. In his bearing, in the magnificent picture he made under the flaming skies, there seemed a subtle challenge to the two Englishwomen. All his English nature rose in revolt against the barriers that rose between himself and Damaris, daughter of his mother's race; but, curbing his passion with the self-control he had learned in British fields of sport, he remembered that he belonged primarily to his father's land, whose people had three thousand years before held the keys of civilisation in their powerful hands, whilst the people of his mother's land were just about emerging from the primitiveness of the Stone Age.
"I am the East!" he seemed to cry in his utter immobility.
Then he turned, beckoned, and gave a sharp order to the bewildered policeman, who salaamed almost to the ground.
Hugh Carden Ali bowed, to the saddle, as the great car shot smoothly forward. There was a smile of welcome on the face of the old woman who had loved his mother; a whole world of welcome in the outstretched hand and a little feeling of thankfulness in her heart; that at last she might get to know the man in time, and, with him, go to visit his mother, or, better still, win his confidence, heal his hurt, and so obviate the tedious journey.
But there was to be no drawing together of the man's wound with the silken threads of sympathy.
He sat like a statue, with his left hand raised in salute,[1] until the Englishwomen had passed; then, throwing his falcon, he watched the confused bird's flight in search of the quarry which was not there.
"Cry aloud to Ali the worker of wonders, From Him thou wilt find help from trouble."
He quoted the first two lines from the Ned'i Ali, the formula used in the East when trouble threatens a falcon, and, touching the mare, passed down the Sharia Abbas, whilst the old lady, going in the opposite direction, came to a sudden decision.
[1]In the East the falcon is carried on the right hand.
CHAPTER XV.
"When he is best he is little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast."
SHAKESPEARE.
Even as the frail little old lady sat quietly looking out at the coming of the dawn, Qatim the Ethiopian sat looking with pride round his transformed hovel in the back reaches of the bazaar. Having gathered Zulannah from the gutter where she had been thrown after the dogs had pulled her down, he carried her to his hovel and, believing her to be dead, flung her body on the heap of filthy straw which served him as couch, and then stole back—in fact, six times he made the journey—to the courtesan's great house. He did not argue with himself, he had no theories and most certainly no moral standards: the woman was dead; there were certain things, beautiful, gaudy, glittering things in her house which his heart had always coveted, which had made his fingers to itch and his mouth to water; brute instinct told him to seize the bones before the other dogs fell upon them; and he obeyed the brutish impulse.
Hundreds of soft silken gowns; cushions of every hue; the great crimson cover from off the divan—all of these he made into a huge bundle which he carried to his den. The gold and jewelled toilet accessories, the silver basin and ewer, just because they glittered, he tied in a pair of emerald green satin curtains; various strange knives and things with prongs, with which on certain occasions the courtesan had conveyed food to her mouth—she used her fingers in private—with a jewel-encrusted nargileh of marvellous workmanship, he rolled up in a bright yellow and green Kidderminster carpet.
On his fifth journey he carried a small Milner safe upon his back, letting it drop gently upon the hovel floor without the slightest acceleration in his breathing. For five minutes he played with the knob, like a huge monkey, then grinned, rubbed his chest and bull-neck with straw, and padded off again down the circuitous streets at a gentle trot.
He looked at the sky and at the closed doors and windows of the packed houses, and grinned again. He could not tell the hour by a clock, but he knew to a second when the first of the seething mass of humans asleep on the beds and floors and stairs of the packed houses would yawn, rub the sleep from their eyes and stumble, shivering, into the street. He had still his greatest treasure to bring, and had no wish to be caught with it on his back; not because of the criminality of his proceedings—that never once entered his thick skull—but because he was scared of having the mirror reft from him. He was almost devoid of brain, but had a certain animal instinct which served him in good stead and which, in this instance, urged him to keep his part in the history of the past evening to himself. He picked up the full-length mirror as though it had been a small picture, and stood for an instant grinning cheerfully, looking round the room in which his mistress had so often kicked and threatened him.
Then he gave a little click at the back of his throat, placed the mirror on the floor and stole across the Persian carpet of an unknown antiquity and value to a painted deal writing desk which had once reposed in a shop window in Westbourne Grove; and which, on account of its little drawers and little cupboards with painted doors, had given intense joy to the woman whose wealth in hard cash in the bank and jewels in the safe was almost incredible. He lifted the slanting lid, moved a bundle of papers fastened by an elastic band, and pulled out a drawer out of which be took a cheque-book.
He had no idea of the real use of the book with the buff cover and pale pink leaves, but he knew that you had only to make certain black marks on one of the pink leaves and take it to the big house in the Sharia Clot Bey with its fierce man standing in front of the door and money would be given in exchange.
On account of his cunning, his stolidity, his mighty muscle and ferocious appearance Qatim had been made bank-messenger in chief to the House of Zulannah, and had often stood at his mistress's side when she had taken the cheque-book from the drawer and made strange black marks on one of the pink leaves. True, he had rolled his eyes and shown his teeth fiercely many a time at the interpreter who had had to be called to explain that, although he had handed a pink leaf through the bars, there was no money forthcoming; but as his mistress had not struck him for returning empty-handed he had resigned himself at last to the strangeness of the proceedings. The book meant money, that was all he knew; so he slipped it into his loin-cloth as had been his rather distressing habit when handed a bundle of notes by the bank-clerk who, with his co-workers, had never tired of gazing at the gigantic creature in white shorts, crimson tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar.
He gave no thought to the dead body on the filthy straw; that he knew he could carry under his arm and drop into the Nile when the bazaar slept; but he pulled hard at his curly hair as a plan germinated in the sluggish convolutions of his brain.
It was a very vague and a very childlike plan, but too much could not be expected from one who had been conceived, born and bred on the animal plane.
After an hour's pondering it, however, took a fairly definite outline.
When the sun had warmed the cool wind of night he would hide the body under the straw and visit his eunuch twin, who had really been the cause of the disaster. His silence would have to be bought. Of course it would have been better to have broken his neck at once, but it was too late now, so there was no use in worrying! Then he would go terrorise the servants, giving them to understand that he had been left in charge in his mistress's absence; he would remain in charge until he had acquired enough money to buy the coal-black little Venus who worked in the Shoemakers Bazaar; after that he would creep away with her and return to his own village further down the Nile.
And because, perhaps, of the childishness of the plan it succeeded up to a certain point.
He found his eunuch brother, who was the only one besides his master and himself to know that the dancer had been Zulannah, in the grip of such terror and physical pain as to be almost imbecile, though a look of cunning had shone for a moment in his bloodshot eyes when Qatim had inadvertently let drop a hint as to the accumulated riches in his hovel.
Anyway, they came to an understanding which ensured the eunuch's silence at the price of so much good money, paid in instalments.
Qatim had no intention of holding to his side of the agreement, nor his brother to his—as is the way of such breed of Oriental.
Then, just as he was, clad only in loin-cloth and with whip in hand, the gigantic brute strode to the House of Zulannah. Ensued a turbulent hour, at the end of which he remained acknowledged master of the house and inmates until the return of the mistress, whilst those who had mocked him went in search of cool leaves to place upon the bruised portion of their backs and those two whose heads he had cracked together for having resisted him lay quite still.
Returned to the hovel as the sun was sinking, and in high fettle, he donned red tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar and strutted with all the negro's delight in fine feathers in front of the mirror which rested against the crumbling plaster walls.
And then he suddenly stopped and stared into the glass.
The filthy straw in the corner of the room had moved. His face went grey; great beads of sweat showed upon his chest, his knees shook, then he fell on his face and covered his head with a corner of the green-yellow Kidderminster carpet, when a voice feebly craved for water and a small blood-stained hand weakly pulled at the straw.
Zulannah was not dead.
He lay terror-stricken for some long time, then slowly got to his knees, tore off the fine feathers and flung the scimitar into a far corner; then, naked save for the loin-cloth, sat down with his back to the straw and pulled at his curly oiled hair, a sure sign in him of deep thought.
Then he grinned and, rising, walked across the floor, and, sitting down again, pulled the woman from under the straw.
No! Zulannah was not dead, nor even fatally hurt, but she was horrible to look upon when the Ethiopian had washed her clean by means of a handful of straw dipped in a broken pitcher of water.
The dog's great fangs had driven behind the ear, severing the mastoid nerve so that the mouth was pulled right up the left side of the face; it had also injured the muscle controlling the eyelid, causing it to droop and giving a diabolical leer to the once beautiful doe-like eye; it had also injured the muscle of the neck so that the head was slightly twisted; but, worst of all, the other dog had driven its terrible fangs into the muscle above the knees, injuring it so that she would never walk straight again.
And Qatim sat back on his haunches, and laughed, clapping his enormous hands.
She was not dead, and her hands were not injured, but she was too hideous to show herself unveiled and too twisted to be recognised in the street.
So all that was left to him to do was to cure her injuries—which he did, and quickly, under the advice of an old herbalist in the Silk Market,—and then sit down for the rest of his life whilst she drew strange little marks on those pale pink leaves.